Big Sur Laureate

Henry Miller helped make Big Sur famous in the 1940s and '50s, turning out novels that challenged literary norms, plus thousands of watercolor paintings. Miller was well established before he found Big Sur in 1942, largely because of his Tropic of Cancer, which sold millions of copies even though it was banned 30 years for its graphic content. Miller wrote it in 1934 while living in Paris. He was 51 when he explored California's artist colonies, including Carmel, and decided to settle on the remote Partington Ridge in Big Sur. He explained later in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch: "It is my belief that the immature artist seldom thrives in idyllic surroundings. If an art colony is established here it will go the way of all the others. Artists never thrive in colonies. Ants do." Ironically perhaps given the nature of some of his writing, Miller was so inspired by Big Sur that he invoked divinity to describe it: "This is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked out on from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the Earth as the Creator intended it to look."

(Photo: Partington Ridge in Bug Sur courtesy of ekai)

Point Sur Lighthouse

(Photo: Point Sur Lighthouse courtesy of slworking2, Creative Commons license.)

Point Sur was especially hazardous for sea travelers during the 100-year period from the mid-1800s, when marine traffic increased dramatically, to after World War II, when radar became common. Brave sailors died in shipwrecks, but ironically, some Central Coast residents profited, rushing to beaches to scoop up lumber and other goods that washed ashore. The good ship Ventura foundered off the coast in 1875. This accident gave impetus to construction of the Point Sur Light Station, which opened in 1889. Even after the lighthouse began operation, shipwrecks happened - partly because vessels plied perilously close to the rocky shores to avoid headwinds. The light station is open for tours; moonlight tours are powerfully evocative. Call 831-625-4419 for details.

(Video: A tour and background of the Point Sur Historic Lighthouse)

Images Sought

(Photo: Ansel Adams along the cliffs of Big Sur, originally published on March 28, 1980 by the Los Angeles Times. This cropped, smaller image is considered a fair use. Original photo © Los Angeles Times.)

Ansel Adams, possibly the best known photographer in the world, died in Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in 1984 at the age of 82. But his unique photos still sell well as prints, posters, books, calendars and cards. One of the more than 30,000 prints Adams made himself sold for $609,000 during a 2006 auction in New York. And just three months ago, a new visitors’ center at a national park in New Mexico opened with a roomful of photos Adams took there in the 1940s. Born and raised in San Francisco in 1902, Adams was a concert pianist until he was 28, when he decided to devote himself to his photography. He went into it with zeal and lived for years in Yosemite, then moved to Carmel in 1962. Adams had to support his art and his family with commercial photography, portraits, teaching and editing for 40 years until the 1970s, when he was able to make a living solely from his famous images.

(Video: Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius)

The First Village

(Photo: Where Esselen Indians prepared acorn meal in Big Sur courtesy of surharper), all rights reserved.)

Detailed recording of Monterey Peninsula history started in 1770 when Spanish missionaries landed and brought a written language. But there were people living here for at least 5,000 years before that. They were collectively called Coastanoans (coast people) by the Spanish, but they called themselves Esselen, Rumsen, Salinan and Ahma Mutsun, different groups and cultures with different origins. Archaeologists have found at least 30 of the early Indian settlements on the Peninsula and have carbon dated the rock tools, sea shells, trash and bones left behind. The most recent find uncovered the oldest known residential site in the area – near Lovers Point in Pacific Grove. Archaeological Consulting of Salinas found Esselen lived there about 5,300 years ago. DNA testing reported in 2006 found those earliest known inhabitants lived on diets of mostly sea otters and seals, with some shellfish and fish and very few plants, seeds or nuts.

The Architect of Big Sur

(Photo: Nathaniel Owings on the cover of Time Magazine, August 2, 1968, considered fair use).

The late Nathaniel Owings was a world-renowned architect who helped build the first skyscrapers before he helped preserve Big Sur. Owings and his wife Margaret built a modest home on the coast in the 1950s. They joined with agitated neighbors in the 1960s when Caltrans planned to accommodate tourism by widening Highway 1 and filling in the many canyons for continuous pavement. "Beauty is almost a bad word with some highway engineers," Owings said. "They're very competent. But you would not ask your butcher to perform plastic surgery on your best girl." So he had experts in his giant firm – Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill – design concrete bridges that would be cheaper and more beautiful than clogged canyons. Then Owings helped write an overall land use plan to limit development in Big Sur in order to protect the scenic views, watershed and wildlife - a plan that essentially still governs man's intrusion into that natural wonderland.

Esalen Institute

(Photo: Hot springs at Esalen Institute in 2006 by boltron, Creative Commons License.)

The greatest accomplishment of the Esalen Institute, founded in Big Sur in 1962 by Michael Murphy and Dick Price, is the incubation of a powerful psychological school of thought, the human potential movement. It proposes a positive, "self-actualized" future for humanity (a contrast to the Freudian and Skinnerian notions that long dominated mainstream psychological thinking). The phrase "human potential movement" was coined at Esalen in 1965 by Murphy and author George Leonard, based on the phrase "civil rights movement" and Aldous Huxley's "human potentialities." For almost 50 years now, Esalen has been a world-renowned gathering point for scholars and students. Many people who got their start there, or passed through, have written important books, including Murphy's encyclopedic "The Future of the Body." "Esalen has had a profound effect on American culture," says Jeffrey J. Kripal, an author and noted scholar of religion.


(Video: Esalen photo essay by Alyce Faye Cleese)

California Condors

(Photo: A California Condor in Big Sur that was part of a flock of ten birds. Photo used with permission of Brenner Photography.)

California Condors, the big birds seen as buzzards or circling vultures in old movies, were nearly extinct when the last nine were caught 20 years ago and taken to Southern California zoos for captive breeding as part of a recovery program. Now we have about 300 condors – more than two dozen of them once again soaring over Big Sur, including the first two chicks born there in more than a century. Others are in other parts of California and Arizona – including the Pinnacles east of the Salinas Valley – or still in the zoos, cared for as breeding stock in the recovery program. Thousands existed before the 1849 Gold Rush brought miners, settlers and hunters that gradually eliminated the large scavengers, but some can now be seen from Highway 1, usually near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

(Video of California Condors in Big Sur)

Sea Otters

(Photo: Monterey Bay Otter eating a crab by Jane Vargas of Monterey Bay Photos. Permission requested.)

Hunters swept through California waters in the 1800s and killed thousands of southern sea otters for their luxurious fur. The species was nearly wiped out, but a tiny group of 32 otters survived near Big Sur. Their existence was kept secret by nature lovers until 1938. The feisty little critters at Monterey Bay Aquarium are descendants of that small group.

(Video: The Monterey Aquarium program to assist in the recovery of sea otters)

John L. D. Roberts

John L.D. Roberts, a doctor who moved to this area from the East Coast in 1887, was a key figure in the building of Highway 1 from the Carmel area to San Simeon. (He also founded the city of Seaside .) He loved Big Sur, riding horseback often along the coast. With the proliferation of automobiles, he began dreaming of a beautiful highway. (The Ford Model T, in 1908, made the car a mass market item.) In 1919, thanks partly to Roberts' advocacy, the state budgeted for the road. Construction on this hazardous project began in 1922 and was completed 70 years ago, on June 27, 1937

Highway 1 along the rugged Big Sur coast has been hailed as the most scenic road in America since it opened 70 years ago in 1937. The highway, sought by hotel owners and would-be resort developers, made it possible to drive from the Monterey Peninsula to Hearst Castle in San Simeon year-round without worrying about winter washouts on the dirt roads inland. It was also an engineering and transportation triumph, routing automobiles along the sides of cliffs and over 41 creeks, rivers and coves that break up jagged shoreline. The highway took 18 years to build as workers, including many state convicts, blasted through mountains, filled in coves, constructed concrete bridges and hung pavement on steep dropoffs. It has required a lot of maintenance since, while it has carried millions of travelers through the breathtaking scenery.

(Photo: John Roberts from the city of Seaside archives.)

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell became a superstar of public TV in the 1980s when he discussed mythology in interviews with Bill Moyers. The conversations are one of the most compelling events in the history of television. What's not commonly known is that some aspects of Campbell's worldview were shaped by the Monterey Peninsula in the early 1930s. During a visit here, he befriended the great marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who Campbell said became a "special teacher of consciousness." Thanks to Ricketts, close friend of author John Steinbeck, Campbell fell in love with the Monterey Bay seashore, and used the lessons of the tide pools – ecology, balance, struggle, connectedness – to inform his pioneering exploration of the world of myth. Campbell made an annual pilgrimage to Big Sur to celebrate his birthday at Esalen in the last fifteen years of his life. (Photo: copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF.org). Used with permission.)

Henry Miller

No resident of Big Sur was more controversial, or interesting, than author Henry Miller (1891-1980). Some of his books were regarded as obscene by the U.S. government, but thousands of readers regarded him as important. His neighbors on the coast were similarly divided – many people loathed him; others loved his fierce commitment to freedom. Perhaps Big Sur played a role in his creativity, says Magnus Toren, director of the Henry Miller Library. The library, a little jewel, is located 45 minutes south of Carmel, one-quarter mile south of Nepenthe restaurant. "The intensity and romance of this landscape attracts people with an independent spirit," Toren says, "and it also brings forth in them an urge to create."

Video: Henry Miller on Big Sur